Willits City Council to address mobile home rent stabilization

Resident reps say an ad hoc committee not acceptable

Residents from the Wagon Wheel and Valley Oaks mobile home parks are mobilizing to address the Willits City Council tonight, asking city officials to adopt a rent stabilization ordinance after an out of the area property management company’s acquisition of the properties led to rent increases and reported intimidation tactics against the elderly and low income tenants last summer.

A mediation meeting with Cheryl Abney, a 10-year resident at Wagon Wheel, Willits Senior Center Outreach Coordinator Priscilla Tarver, Vice Mayor Saprina Rodriguez, interim City Manager Bob Perrault and BoaVida park management representatives Abe Arrigotti and Ben Smith held last Wednesday at City Hall did not result in a resolution according to Perrault.

“I thought the discussion was positive and a good exchange of information,” Perrault said. “No resolution was identified but there seemed to be a willingness to continue the discussion.”

Abney said BoaVida communities purchased three mobile home parks in the area last year and the new property management subsequently fired the on-site management at Wagon Wheel, then failed to hire a new manager, violating state law. According to Abney, that is when intimidation tactics by BoaVida’s Drita Brokey and other members of the new management team began including increased inspections, threatening tenants for various reasons and harassing them if they failed to sign long-term lease agreements.

According to a staff report following the mediation meeting prepared by Perrault, residents were impacted by a $60 rent increase effective Nov.1, 2017 and by the discontinuation of a $50 discount previously provided, the combined adjustment totalling $110.

Perrault wrote in a report to the council that according to the property management there are now 68 long-term leases in place that would exempt those spaces from rent stabilization. The remaining 45 spaces fall under short-term leases of up to 12 months and could fall under a rent stabilization program, should the council want to initiate one.

“It should be noted that whatever the council chooses to do with this issue,” Parrault noted in the report, “the council doesn’t have the authority to require the park manager to reduce rents from the current level.”

The report notes according to state law, tenants with short term leases cannot be charged a basic rate that is different than the basic rate charged for the first 12 months in a long-term lease. In the case of the Wagon Wheel tenants with long-term leases, the next adjustment in basic rent will occur on November 1, 2018 at which time the rent will be raised by $35 to $580.85.

Abney said during the mediation meeting she expressed concern about the “price gouging” of a 22 percent increase, advising that survey she conducted last summer indicated 68 percent of residents earn $25,000 a year or less.

“I asked Abe (Arrigotti) how much longer he was going to continue to violate California state law No.18603 which requires all rental apartments, mobile home parks, etc, with 50 or more units have to have an on site person to reside for emergencies,” Abney said. “He lied and said we have one.”

According to Abney’s account of the mediation proceedings, he advised that the management’s goal was to improve the parks, but she questioned how that would be done with no manager at Wagon Wheel and the removal of surveillance cameras on site. Abney said since the manager was fired last May, drug dealing of methamphetamine and heroin is at an all time high at the mobile park. She added that she is meeting with law enforcement to discuss this in the near future. She also expressed concern over BoaVida’s plan to build and charge residents for additional parking spaces at Valley Oaks.

Park management failed to return calls in regards to their future plans at the properties.

Perrault advised the council that in staff’s opinion there are three alternatives the city can pursue: the council could choose to take no action since there is no requirement that the council needs to assume the responsibility for rent stabilization, the council could form an Ad Hoc Committee that would work with representatives of the tenants and owners to develop a long-term lease that would carry the added protection the residents are seeking, or the council could direct city staff to develop an ordinance similar to the one adopted in nearby Ukiah.

Abney called ad hoc committee an unacceptable solution, calling it a stalling tactic on the part of the property management so that the council does not pass the ordinance by the Nov. 1 deadline to increase the rent once more.

“This will ruin the community if they don’t help us,” she said. “They are going to finish off Willits, first the bypass, then the ADA lawsuits, and now this. It’s a one-two-three punch.”